Quebec will launch its first university program in cultural discoverability this fall. The graduate-level training offered by the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) aims to equip professionals with the tools to better position their cultural content on major online platforms.
In line with Quebec’s efforts in discoverability, including the adoption of a law to that effect last December, the microprogram of the Faculty of Communication at UQAM has been granted a subsidy.
The Minister of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe, announced on Tuesday financial assistance of just over $111,000 to support its creation.
“It is with initiatives like this, combined with government actions such as the adoption of Bill 109 and Quebec’s mobilization at UNESCO, that we will allow Quebec culture to benefit from the digital revolution rather than suffer from it,” Lacombe said in a statement.
The training should, in particular, enable the development of skills to understand how cultural content currently circulates and to design strategies that promote access to and dissemination of works. The courses could be useful, for example, to digital cultural development officers.
“Through this new discoverability training, UQAM will collectively help us to have a better theoretical understanding of the issues surrounding discoverability and also to equip the cultural sector with practitioners capable of supporting the sector in the years to come,” the minister said.
According to UQAM Rector Stéphane Pallage, the university is “taking a decisive step” by moving “from recognized research expertise (…) to the transmission of knowledge and skills necessary to intervene concretely in the digital environments of culture.”
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
